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Tom Litchford - WFLSD Commissioner position No. 3
Why are you running for office?
My passion to give back to the community has always leaned toward emergency services. There was an opportunity in September 2008 where I saw a board vacancy and I decided I’d go for that position but they chose somebody else and that was fine. But it got me thinking that I’d really like to do this. When the election came around, there were two openings available so I applied and I’m running.
What are the most important issues?
The biggest, most looming issue is the assessed values (of property) which impacts the district’s revenue. On the west side of the district they’re looking at a 14 percent decline and the east side of the district is upwards of 20 percent. That equates anywhere from a one to three-million shortfall in revenue. So they’ve got to go figure out how to maintain the quality of service that they give today.
How would you propose to tighten the fiscal belt without cutting services?
I think you look at it in three steps: First you have to look at the budget and where you can defer expenditures and push them out further into next year or the year after that — but you want to hit things that don’t impact your quality of service. The second thing is utilizing the reserve funds and I’d look at that as a potential source of short-term dollars to shore up this loss of income we have. The third area is you have to start looking at programs and services — freezing staff and cutting non-essential programs and services to save money. You have to have a plan that spells out actions you’re going to take in priority order and all parties need to know what’s going to happen. Everybody’s got to know what we’re going to sacrifice short-term in order to maintain quality of service and then pick it back up as the economy recovers.
There’s talk about joining forces with another department to share a fire chief. What are your thoughts?
There are a couple of concepts there. One is the broader concept of a Regional Fire Authority, or RFA, and in my mind that makes sense. The district should probably have been looking a lot sooner than they have been on how we provide better service in terms of maybe Woodinville working closer with Duvall or Redmond or Snohomish 7, merging districts. There are lots of complexities there when you’re crossing county lines and looking at different tax bases and EMS systems, different labor management systems so it’s very complex. It needs long-term planning.
The other issue with the chief is obviously the board has dug itself a hole and they’re trying to figure out how to get some leadership back into this department quickly. Whether it makes sense to share a chief or not, I’m not sure. I’m not privy to the conversations that are going on. I think they may have some people already on staff that are capable of assuming some leadership positions.
There’s also the question of the Kirkland annexation, which would shrink the fire district by 10 percent and reduce jobs. What are your thoughts?
Nine or 10 percent, either way it’s a million and a half bucks when you’re looking at a $15 million budget. And basically it’s probably going to happen so it’s not an issue of trying to stop it. I don’t know the exact boundaries but I believe there will still be some pockets of areas that would be Woodinville district that would be difficult to get to from a quality of service perspective. They’ve got to focus on that quality of service. What the constituents of our district maybe don’t understand is that station 34 could potentially go away with annexation. So there are some very tough decisions to be made. If annexation happens, we would have about a year to figure out what we’re going to do there. Cutting staff, to me, is the very last step you have to take. I know they’re talking to Kirkland about potentially joining forces at station 34, and they’ve looked at potentially building a new station. But I don’t know how deep they’ve gotten in those discussions yet.
What can be improved?
WFLSD is a great department and I would argue that the people in that department are some of the most passionate people we’ve got. They’ve dedicated their lives to serving others and as a board we owe it to them to provide the leadership and vision and strategy to move together into the future. From that leadership perspective we’ve got to stop the micro-management. We’ve got to start trusting the people that are put in place to run the department ... to run the department. And that would free up the board to start tackling some of these bigger issues.
• Resident of Woodinville: 11 years in December.
• Employment: Industry director at Microsoft.
• Education: BS in computer science from Florida Atlantic University.
• Personal: Married for 25 years with two teenage girls at WHS and Timbercrest.
• Civic Involvement: Board of Directors, Medic One Foundation; Advisory Board, Fair Factories Clearinghouse; Chair, Finance, Bear Creek UMC; WFSLD CERT; American Red Cross Instructor.
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